Got my set yesterday and listening to it now. First impression is that the sound is a little "soft and blended", reverby, ambient, as opposed to crystal clear? Sounds almost like it's processed to sound more like an audience recording than the soundboard that it is, like they wanted to round off the crispy edges. Just listening to the St. Paul discs so far. "Muffier" than the Europe 72 releases. Anyone?

And I ordered it back on May 7, there are 15,000 copies, Dead.net says there are only like 1,500 left, and my number is around 13,500. Must be your number and order date aren't connected.

Packaging is well done (he said damning with faint praise).

Last edited by TI4-1009 on Fri Jun 14, 2013 7:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

"Do not write so that you can be understood, write so that you cannot be misunderstood." -Epictetus

First show: 8/16/69 (Woodstock)
Last show: 3/19/95 (Unbroken Chain breakout)
Member of the Four-Decade Club
Charter Member, President & CEO of OAD (Order of the Ancient Deadheads)

Got mine yesterday, ordered it the day it was announced and my number is in the 10,000 range. Doesn't mean a thing. So far I am liking it. The sound is exactly as I expected: the reverb drenched May 1977 Betty mixes that we all know and love so well. A bit cleaner and with very stable imaging - thanks Plangent!. One thing that did disappoint me - I have only run through 5/13/1977 so far (had to hear the post drums after all this time) and I was bummed that the bulk of the great banter just before the 1st TMNS opener was cut out. Makes no sense to me so as we have had to do with many of their releases, i will take the circulating copy and put it back in.

I like the packaging bu I wish they would use actual jewel case trays for the discs - those cardboard sleeves scratch discs so as always my first project upon opening it up was to carefully remove each disc and place them in labeled Jewel cases.

Gonna plug in now and take a few runs through Cumberland Blues and then settle in for the evening with, well I have not yet decided but I am certain my day's wind down will be just exactly perfect.

jefkahn wrote:I think it's very reasonable that GD won't formally release shows for which they don't have masters, so therefore no Cornell. I think it was very cool that Lemieux said they won't pay someone else for their own tapes. Hopefully whoever has them (Cornell or others) will do the right thing and return them back to the Dead.

Whoever has said reels might feel like that's not the right thing to do, and money might not be the only mitigating factor. I mean, obviously the folks who have them must have some kind of rightful claim, or else wouldn't it be easy to prove the Grateful Dead owned them and win a judgement and then force the parties to hand them over?

Even if they had a master reel for Cornell, there's no guarantee they would release it. Dick Latvala named 100 shows he thought made better candidates for release than 5/8/77. IDK if that means they were actually considering it once, like they had access to the tapes?

I emailed Dave L. and offered him my VHS Betty boards. Recorded off digital copies of the reals. My VHS tapes often sound better than the official releases, presumably due to the tape size and recording speed, versus being pressed into a CD. My first set Albany is better quality than the Dozin release (a fav as I caught all three shows, too bad they did not release the Eyes 2nd set opener).

His response was they already had good copies of most of those shows. I suspect it's a matter of principal that they only release of of actual casette or real to real masters rather than a secondary source which is odd because some official releases have horrible cuts in them with audiance recordings cobbled in, or just sound crappy like DP 32, from Alpine ( one of my favs as I was also there).

just got mine today, immediately popped in 5/12/77 since Ive only ever heard an aud recording.

This release sounds ridiculously good. Vocals sound great with the thick reverb. The drums are clear, strong and present, making the intense songs all the more powerful. Maybe the best sounding Dead release I own.